Rachel Maddow Released 2005 ‘Trump Tax Returns’

Donald Trump earned more than $150 million in the year 2005—and paid just a small percentage of that in regular federal income taxes. Daily Beast contributor David Cay Johnston has obtained what appear to be the first two pages of Trump’s 2005 federal income-tax return, and published an analysis of those pages on his website, DCReport.org.

The documents show Trump and his wife Melania paying $5.3 million in regular federal income tax—a rate of less than 4 percent. However, the Trumps paid an additional $31 million under the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. Trump has previously called for the elimination of this tax.

“Before being elected president, Mr. Trump was one of the most successful businessmen in the world with a responsibility to his company, his family, and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the White House said in a statement Tuesday night. “That being said, Mr. Trump paid $38 million even after taking into account large-scale depreciation for construction, on an income of more than $150 million, as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in other taxes such as sales and excise taxes and employment taxes and this illegally published return proves just that.”

Trump’s 2005 return also shows that he’d continued to benefit from the roughly $916 million loss he reported in his 1995 return—published last year by The New York Times. Using a loophole Congress closed in 1996, Trump converted that loss into a tax credit for the same amount he could offset against income.

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MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow claims she has President Trumps elusive tax returns, she said Tuesday.

Maddow pledged to discuss Trumps much-desired financial documents on The Rachel Maddow Show at 9 p.m. following months of dogged calls to have them released ahead of the November election.

In January, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said the White House would not release the documents despite a precedent for GOP presidential candidates to release their returns during the past nine elections.